Ghostcrawler: Dungeons are Hard!

Ghostcrawler is back, and he has some choice words to say about dungeon difficulty!

I'd like to give you a summary here, but in general GC's posts have a tendency to be easily misinterpreted, so I'd hate to add to the confusion. :P

Come read the full post after the break!

We've seen and heard a lot of discussion about the challenge presented by the Cataclysm Heroic dungeons, and to a lesser extent the raids. I'm not sure this is the kind of issue where we're going to be able to change anyone’s mind on the subject, but I can try to provide more insight into our point of view as well as offer some suggestions for success.

First, let me state that we do hear you. We understand some of you aren’t having fun and preferred the Lich King paradigm, or at least something closer to the Lich King paradigm. We greatly appreciate the feedback and it always makes us sad when players aren’t having fun. We're not ignoring you. We get it. We may not always agree on every point, but we understand where you’re coming from, and we want to try to help you understand where we're coming from.

The bottom line is that we want Heroics and raids to be challenging, and that is particularly true now while the content is new and characters are still collecting gear. They’re only going to get easier from here on out. We want players to approach an encounter, especially a Heroic encounter, as a puzzle to be solved. We want groups to communicate and strategize. And by extension, we want you to celebrate when you win instead of it being a foregone conclusion.

On the other hand, we don't want you to stumble your way to victory. We don't want you to be able to overwhelm bosses without noticing or caring what they’re doing. We don’t want healers to be able to make up for all of the mistakes on the part of the other players. While at the end of the day, dungeons may just be gussied up loot vending machines, we want you to do more than push a button to get the loot.

Ultimately, we don’t want to give undergeared or unorganized groups a near guaranteed chance of success, because then the content will feel absolutely trivial for players in appropriate gear who communicate, cooperate, and strategize.

We didn't like that the Heroic dungeons in Lich King and early Naxxramas had become zerg-fests. It made the rewards feel like they weren't earned. It made all rewards except the best-in-slot items feel transitory -- why enchant or gem an item when you don’t need the performance boost and you’ll quickly replace it anyway? Furthermore, it set the expectation that everyone would eventually earn all best-in-slot items rather than those being rare and treasured goals. It made class abilities feel less useful and interesting. Who needs that crowd-control or survivability talent when nothing is hurting you? Who needs a mana-conservation talent if you’re never going to run out of mana? Who needs a crit talent if your heals often overheal anyway?

Finally, the encounters, even the bosses, ended up having a sameness to them because you could ignore their mechanics. It didn't matter -- in fact, you didn't even notice -- if the dragon breathes or silences or drops a void zone. The fights all felt the same.

In Cataclysm, the Heroic dungeons and raids are intended to be challenging -- and they are, at least until you overgear them.

So what can you do if you find the Heroics too challenging? Here are a few tips and alternatives.

Strategy and Communication

Tanks, you can’t pull and AE every group in a Heroic (again, until you overgear the content). It’s a good idea to crowd control at least one target -- and sometimes two. As long as you have someone with a long-duration and/or renewable crowd control and someone else with a short crowd control such as a stun or even a snare, you should be fine. We don’t have anything like Heroic Shattered Halls, and you don’t need 3 mages for CC. Caster mobs, which are weak but do a lot of damage, are good choices for crowd control. So are mobs that buff other mobs or debuff your group. Don’t waste the CC on non-elite mobs or others that will die quickly. The responsibility for marking and setting the pace often falls upon the tank, but sometimes other experienced players are happy to take the mantle. If you are setting the pace, you need to keep an eye on healer mana. Healers will generally have enough mana to keep you alive in any given fight, but you need to be careful not to chain pull repeatedly if their mana is low. Tanks tend to have good situational awareness and are experienced at reducing incoming damage. Where I have personally seen them get into trouble is when they slip into overconfident “I got this” mode and try to tank too many things at once.

DPS specs often get blamed the most for not knowing what is going on. It should be your business to understand the mechanics of the fights. You’re a member of a team, not a follower who can always rely on someone else to tell them what to do. Which are the spells that need to be interrupted? Which are the void zones that you absolutely must get out of? Which are the adds that must be burned down (and conversely, when should you ignore the adds and focus on the boss instead)? If you aren’t sure, then ask. Almost every group would rather take the few seconds to explain a fight than to wipe because you failed to dodge Glubtok's wall of fire or tried to AE Vanessa’s spiders or didn't understand what "Downwind of Altairus" meant.

Healers seem like they largely understand that Heroics are challenging, and sometimes get penalized when the rest of the group doesn’t understand that. If you feel like you can’t cast anything but your efficient heal or you’ll run out of mana, then something is going wrong with the fight. Likewise, if you feel like you must spam your inefficient heals to the exclusion of all else, then your group is ignoring key mechanics or is just undergeared. Boss fights in 5-player dungeons generally shouldn’t last more than two minutes or so (the last few Deadmines bosses can be longer). If you’re running out of mana because the fights are going too long, that is a problem with the DPS or tank in your group. Gear also makes a huge difference for healers, which leads to my next point.

For everyone, regardless of role, I suggest running the dungeons on normal mode until you feel more comfortable with the pulls. Those runs can be quick, the penalty for mistakes isn’t as high, and you can often still earn a little reputation, cloth, or enchanting materials. As a bonus, you’ll probably make a group really happy if you’re geared for Heroics but helping them out in a normal dungeon.

Improve

If you just can’t make progress and you are literally wiping on trash pulls over and over, it may be time to analyze your gear. The Dungeon Finder's Heroic item level requirement should be considered a minimum -- and remember, it doesn’t look at enchants or gems or even if the gear is appropriate for you. We are assuming an entry-level Heroic player has a lot of item level 333 gear from Twilight Highlands, normal dungeons, or any of the reputation vendors. These 333s are probably mixed in with a few 318 quest greens, but offset by a few 346 items. If you finished the Hyjal quests, you are probably Revered with Guardians of Hyjal and have access to their 346 items. Questing might only earn you Honored with some of the other reputations, but that is easily rectified with daily quests or dungeon tabards (and don’t forget the Tol Barad reps). There are some nice crafted items. No, the weapons aren’t purple, but when you look at their stats, they are quite competitive.

The item level requirement is intended only to keep out players who have no idea what is appropriate content for them. We know you can game it by getting PvP gear or hiding off-spec gear in your bags. Congrats on being sneaky! If you’re sophisticated enough to try and game the item-level requirements, you should be sophisticated enough to know if you can actually handle the content.

Don't be stingy and decide you aren’t going to mess with gemming, enchanting, or reforging until you have epic gear. Note that you don’t have to always apply the most expensive enchants or gems. Gear matters a lot. It increases DPS, survivability, and mana sustainability. Healers who get, say, 1750-1800 Spirit notice that they can go a lot longer without gassing out. Go ahead and get enchants or gems or reforge to get a lot of Spirit. Some DPS specs who don’t reforge hit at those gear levels would struggle a lot as well. The new Cataclysm flasks are fairly expensive, but the Lich King ones aren’t, and there are elixirs and food consumables you can use as well. Archaeologists can even unlock small bonuses in the new dungeons.

Furthermore, once 4.1 comes out, you will have access to more powerful gear that will let you then revisit the content you couldn’t do before. Your Justice points will let you purchase epic items at that point, and Heroics that were challenging will become a lot easier. Players who have raid gear currently are already starting to burn through the dungeon content again, which is totally expected. You’ll get there too. In Lich King, the content patches tended to completely invalidate the previous tier of content. We don’t want players to feel like they need to farm Naxxramas when Icecrown Citadel is out, but at the other end of the spectrum, it was unfortunate that we largely killed Ulduar raiding when Trial of the Crusader came out.

LF3M 9600GS PST

I love the Dungeon Finder. I worked on it a lot personally. It is quite successful at finding you a group. It doesn't guarantee a successful group. It's a huge improvement over spamming trade chat trying to find a tank for your three-rogue party. But throwing together up to 5 strangers and asking them to do challenging content that some of the group may have never seen before is always going to be risky.

World of Warcraft supports a lot of solo play. However, we want dungeons to be a group experience. In fact, we think the game is more fun overall when you play with friends, which is why we put so much effort into encouraging players to join guilds for Cataclysm. Running a hard dungeon with friends tends to be a much better experience. Communication feels less awkward, and everyone is generally more supportive of mistakes. You learn the strengths and weaknesses and nuances of players that you run with regularly. There tend to be fewer loot arguments as well. PUGs have their place -- don’t get me wrong. But we don’t want to sacrifice dungeons being fun and challenging for organized groups in order to have everything be conquered by any possible group. Make sense?

I’ve PUGged the Cataclysm content a lot. So have all of the designers. We want to stay in touch with what players are experiencing. Heroic PUGs are definitely harder than going with groups of people you know, but they aren’t impossible. If things start to go wrong, you might want to take a moment to analyze why they are going wrong before you bail. I do weep for those players who join an in-progress Heroic Rajh attempt (with suspicious player skeletons everywhere), immediately pull without any discussion, and then have the tank leave the group following the first wipe. That’s not fun for anyone and not going to lead to success. These aren't the original Scholomance or Arcatraz runs that could take four hours with respawns. Making a couple of concerted attempts on Rajh is probably going to be faster than going into the queue again.

Mistakes?

We've seen a few threads that suggest that we're too proud to admit mistakes. I find that logic strange, because we do it all the time. Example one: we reverted the 10x honor from Tol Barad pretty quickly. It was a mistake. Example two: Heroic Strike is too dominant an attack for warriors. That was a mistake. Example three: the Lich King Heroic dungeons (and Naxxramas) were too easy to zerg, setting up an expansion-long expectation that purple gear would come easy and often. In retrospect, that was a mistake. We don't at all view the Cataclysm dungeon and raid balance as a mistake.

However, I can name at least three things related to dungeon difficulty that we either did wrong or could do better. We're our own worst critic, and we are very hard on our own decisions.

First, item level is a necessary -- but not sufficient -- hoop to jump through when using the Dungeon Finder for Heroics. We should have also made sure players had at least seen the content on normal mode before. Maybe we should have had Burning Crusade-like attunements. Maybe we should have made the item level requirements pretty relaxed if you’re going with a premade group and much stricter if you’re going with a pick-up group. We’d love to implement (and have some long-term plans that include) better ways to detect if you know what you’re doing other than just the gear you’ve accumulated. Overall, we just needed to state more clearly that Heroic dungeons are intended as a destination, not a first step.

Second, there are only a few level-85 normal dungeons. For a level-85 player who isn’t ready for Heroics but wants to run dungeons, these can get old pretty quickly. Perhaps another way to handle it would have been to have introductory Heroics and harder Heroics. We’ve also flirted with having three difficulty levels before, but that does add an extra level of content to develop and complexity to explain.

Third, the game could do a better job of telling a group why they failed so that so much blame doesn’t fall at the feet of the healer. We talk a lot about not standing in fires, but equally important is the number of bosses that spawn in adds that must be gathered up and/or burned down quickly, or in some cases ignored. We’re also asking a lot of DPS or tanks in those situations, but that information isn’t always conveyed well except through trial and error.

In Conclusion

We do understand that some healers are frustrated and giving up. That is sad and unfortunate. But the degree to which it's happening, at least at this point in time, is vastly overstated on the forums. We also know that plenty of players like the changes and find healing more enjoyable now. Both sides need to spend a little less effort trying to drown out the other side claiming that everyone they know -- and by extension, “the majority of players” -- agree with their point. You shouldn’t need to invoke a silent majority if you can make an articulate and salient point.

As always, we're keeping an eye on things. There are a few bosses that seem responsible for more wipes than the others: Commander Springvale, Beauty, Altairus, and Admiral Ripsnarl perhaps. By the time you read this, you might have seen us implement Restoration druid buffs intended to keep them competitive in raids. We also just tend to nerf content over time because the original players hitting that content have moved on, so we want to open it up to a wider audience.

In any case, we want to ensure that everyone is having fun and enjoying their time with the game, and I hope that this post may serve to some as the "tare" button that helps you zero in on the intended dungeon difficulty scale. For others, just know that we are actively reading feedback. For everyone offering constructive posts and points about their experience, we thank you.

Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street is the lead systems designer on World of Warcraft. He has four dogs: three epic retrievers and one green terrier suitable for disenchanting.

Comments

Comment by MoshJosh

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:29:23 -0600

The problem here is that Blizzard needs to teach mechanics all along the leveling curve, not just at max level heroic content. If they did, the players will grow and be more comfortable in support roles as part of the learning experience, instead of just blowing through and zerging content until heroics, where of course they are surprised by the difficulty!

This.

Comment by LordAnthrax74

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:31:10 -0600

I know I am not the only one pissed off here and seriously thinking of jumping ship...where will that leave you... when the people that stuck around for sooooo long leave. and the A.D.D generation decides it is time ta move on when a NEW new game comes out...

Probably with a game that still has a growing population of players both old and new. The problem with outrageous rants like this is, as Ghostcrawler stated, THEY ARE FAR IN THE MINORITY. You are seeing a fraction of WoW's playerbase in the online forums.

Seriously. Posting out of the millions are what? A few hundred thousand? And of them, how many are really mad enough to quit? Oh, I know there are tons mad enough to emoraeg(AARRR BLIZZ WASTED 30 SECS OF MY LIFE RAEG RAEG RAEG etc, you see that every day), but really quit? Very few.

Blizz doesn't have the top MMO on the market because they're stupid and don't listen. On the contrary, they are listening. They're just not listening exclusively to one small fraction of their playerbase. They look at the whole of it and their sub numbers and they watch carefully how and why people sub or unsub. And based on those numbers and their market projections, they make changes to keep people playing.

Myself I'm neither for or against difficulty changes in dungeons. I don't do them until I outlevel them so badly I can solo or two-man them for grins. But I don't think Blizz will intentionally kill their game without having something else lined up to take its place revenue-wise.

Leave, don't leave, it doesn't matter. WoW isn't going anywhere until Blizz says it is. And it's going to take a lot more than a handful of loudmouths on some bulletin boards to skew that. :D

Comment by NecroSen

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:31:26 -0600

Well put, GC. I like the heroics the way they are now: a challenge but not impossible, given that each player take the time to train for them through normal dungeons and farm for rep with dailies and tabards (which is NOT that big of a chore: most people can get the rep they need with at least 2 factions within a week of dungeon runs and dailies).

The comparisons I'm seeing between Cata and BC heroics are a bit moot, don't you think? You have fond memories of running heroics in BC back when you had to spam in trade chat to do it. The only people who would respond were the most confident and patient, those willing to take the time and effort to complete them. The chaff we're hearing about in the LFD queue are those who never had that kind of patience, who perhaps quit WoW until the next expansion after they were done questing.

The LFD tool then came about late in the Wrath expansion, when everyone was already geared like champs for the content it provided. Personally, I got my first 80 just after the LFD tool came out, so I grinded for gear there in order to join raids with my guild. Most groups were able to carry, to some extent, and even if were were all the same low gearscores, the content was not that challenging. GC and the other devs admit to that as a mistake in retrospect, anyway.

When the tool came about, those who originally quit until the next expansion came back and used the tool to run dungeons. They hit a button, a timer counted down, and lo and behold, they've got a dungeon group! Combine that convenience with the ease of completing Wrath heroics, and they basically had an "I Loot" button.

Now we have a joining of two crowds: those who have the skill and patience to endure the challenges of these actually "heroic" Cata heroics, and those who would otherwise not be experiencing dungeon content ever were it not for the LFD tool (or if they vastly out-geared/out-leveled old dungeons to run solo). The latter group was only used to the challenges of a Wrath heroic and was not prepared for a paradigm shift such as what we are experiencing now, and is crying foul. The former couldn't give a crap and are having the time of their WoW lives.

Who you find when you queue in with the LFD tool is a toss-up, and the only way to determine who you get and how they can best contribute is to communicate effectively. Use the first couple of minutes to introduce yourself, ask who knows the dungeon, make sure your tank doesn't go pulling trash on his own without a plan for CC, etc. (BTW, as a hunter, for all you lil tanks: hunter CC uses traps, which are easiest to use before the pull. Quit crying about bad pulls and learn the requirements for different classes' CCs.)

And for the love of god, don't go QQing just to re-join the queue hoping for a better group. There aren't as many people running in the LFD queue right now, so the average wait for groups is pretty long. Very long. Tanks get in almost instantly, of course, but the DPS you're running with have probably been sitting there close to an hour, so cut them some slack. Plus, if you try to re-queue, chances are you'll get thrown into the same group.

Have some patience, learn the fights ahead of time, watch a video or two, work on your character's gear beforehand... Basically, do everything you might do to prep for a raid as prep for a heroic. Yes, they are a stepping stone to raiding, not a half-hour walk in the park to some entitled loot drops. Put in some effort beforehand and you'll find it just getting easier with time.

Comment by Calypsoe

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:39:26 -0600

I personally love the changes. Its about time it went back to working for what you have, and not having it handed out to everyone that logs in. And yes, I am learning my healing rotation and mana usage all over again. It gives the game even more of a new feel with this expansion.

If you don't like the way heroics work, then don't run them. it'll make the ques go just a touch faster for the rest of us.

Comment by Zorrah

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:56:24 -0600

@Ghostcrawler yup... and at the end of the day.... it will ALL get nerfed... we know it is coming... when they start seeing people falling off the wow wagon because they are as he put it "not having fun"

that put's a dent in their wallet....I for one am not some of these kids saying ohh they are fine ... I been playing since last part of Vanilla and now into cata.I hope they do nerf them down a bit... freaking hung up my healer "my fav class" when a game becomes not fun and more like a second jobit is time 2 move on... now, here is where the a$$hat kids will chime in with their snotty remarks... and I will just ignore them cause I would almost bet 100 % most are wotlk generation. so hush up...

and yes we CC and yes we finish heroics.... they are just not fun when you are pulling your hair out and freaking sweating bullets....you went a total 180 deg turn on game mechanics ... I know I am not the only one pissed off here and seriously thinking of jumping ship...where will that leave you... when the people that stuck around for sooooo long leave. and the A.D.D generation decides it is time ta move on when a NEW new game comes out... I have ta wonder really... do the people that make these changes and fight dynamics actually play the game? I understand what you were trying ta do, I do. I just think you guys went over the top and why on earth, really, would you make it stupid hard ta begin with then get easier as you go... that is backward should be easier when you start and harder as you go...

did I like facerolling heroics in woltk.. kinda ya... I have a life outside of wow.. I dont have time ta sit down for a 3 hr "exaggerated" heroicI wanna get in get out... how do you expect people to keep failing over and over and over and over before they say screw this ? anyway... let the troll fest and ghostcrawler "clan of worshipers" began 2 flog me over a open fire... dont really care I have no interest in what is said after I vent this....

Couldn't agree more. I work 12 hour shifts and the last thing I want to do is come home and have to concentrate, think and plan a 2-3 hour heroic. I want my game time to be enjoyable. I don't mind working...but the way it is now is a bit ridiculous. I don't want to faceroll through heroics. I don't mind CC'ing..in fact I like it but its too much at the moment when you have to CC 2-3 targets to get through 1 trash mob group.

Ghostcrawler has no clue about whats going to sustain WoW in the long run. They way it is now isn't going to cut it. He said he's listening....well he's obviously not listening close enough.

Comment by iamcal

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:06:42 -0600

I work 12 hour shifts and the last thing I want to do is come home and have to concentrate, think and plan a 2-3 hour heroic

Then just don't do heroics. I assume you don't raid for the same reason. Wait until heroics are easy enough for you to faceroll them in 20 minutes.

Comment by Kanariya

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:07:23 -0600

I don't mind CC'ing..in fact I like it but its too much at the moment when you have to CC 2-3 targets to get through 1 trash mob group.

I agree. I love the fact they brought back CC, but I hate being relied on to keep two targets chain CC'd while keeping dps up at the same time. Of course, a couple months from now we'll be overgeared and not have to rely on CC as much.

Comment by Noboru

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:40:23 -0600

A very important thing to consider is the fact that many players zerg their way to 85 without ever having run a dungeon, expecting to queue for Heroics at 85 and start getting geared for raiding, thus making any normal dungeon gear worthless.

Lo and behold, they get into a Heroic and their quest blues and greens do not give them the proper health / mana / damage stats in order to properly carry their weight in a group, leaving them up the creek without a paddle 90% of the time.

Sure, they'll occasionally get into a group with players that are very well geared and doing the Heroic solely for the purpose of their daily Valor points, but most of the time they will end up with a group that gets frustrated and ultimately disbands.

And so, their furious path to 85 leaves them with more time spent in the two dungeons that they can run at 85, and more money spent on BoE gear to make up for their inadequacies.

In Wrath, when you got to 80, you queued up and got epics that readied you for raids. It didn't matter if you ran dungeons on your way to 80.

It's not the olden days anymore. The path to raiding doesn't begin at 85. It begins as soon as you ding 80.

Comment by byte1

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:47:01 -0600

Zorrah said:I work 12 hour shifts and the last thing I want to do is come home and have to concentrate, think and plan a 2-3 hour heroic

bawwwwwwwww

take your casual tears somewhere else please

ok, Mr bawwwwwwwwwwww ... what does your day consist of... eating a bowl of cereal.. "lolzn" your way through school... coming home sitting your a@@ in your chair and playing a game till bed... some people don't have the luxury of doing nothing all damn day and we do this ta relax... so, unless you have something useful ta say, zip it.

Comment by byte1

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:02:33 -0600

I personally love the changes. Its about time it went back to working for what you have, and not having it handed out to everyone that logs in. And yes, I am learning my healing rotation and mana usage all over again. It gives the game even more of a new feel with this expansion.

If you don't like the way heroics work, then don't run them. it'll make the ques go just a touch faster for the rest of us.

you obviously just dps and never held a support roll.. how is a in general lack of healers going 2 make the queues go faster ? you gonna pop into your healing bandage spec ?

this goes for all the people that does not... or has not ever healed ... if you have, you know it is a royal PIA fricking tanks are getting hit like mac trucks aoe dmg is on the verge of asinine, and the over all attitude of people is excuse me while I slip into prepubescent mode " damn why the fu# no healz pfft tank and healz suxorz screw is... /nerdrage quit" then wonder looking at the log hey I was standing in "stupid" cause my leet dps of 9k is more important .. pfft the healz should have healed my azz " sorry it is hard ta talk like that...

so, in a nutshell... unless you have done what people are #$%^&ing about... shhhhh

Comment by Aelorean

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:13:42 -0600

did I like facerolling heroics in woltk.. kinda ya... I have a life outside of wow.. I dont have time ta sit down for a 3 hr "exaggerated" heroicI wanna get in get out... how do you expect people to keep failing over and over and over and over before they say screw this ?anyway... let the troll fest and ghostcrawler "clan of worshipers" began 2 flog me over a open fire... dont really care I have no interest in what is said after I vent this....

I just want to say that I agree with this. The dungeons aren't too hard as much as they're just too long. By the time you PUG half-way someone is going to need to leave just because of time constraints. Heck, I can't remember the last time I had enough time to be online long enough to finish a single heroic dungeon (and that's even as a tank with no queue time.)

I think most people like me consider the "end game" to be 5-man heroics because they have enough drops and "grind rewards" to keep it worth doing every day. So, I've always thought that 5 man normals and heroics should be interesting ..but not overly challenging. Raids (using the old EverQuest 1 definition of the term ..which, in WOW, would be 10/25-man groups) should be hard ...no question.

So...I'm one of those waiting for:

We also just tend to nerf content over time because the original players hitting that content have moved on, so we want to open it up to a wider audience.

And you know what? I'm not ashamed to admit it. I just hope it happens before I run out of other things to do given the time I have available.

Oh...and for this guy:

I work 12 hour shifts and the last thing I want to do is come home and have to concentrate, think and plan a 2-3 hour heroic

Then just don't do heroics. I assume you don't raid for the same reason. Wait until heroics are easy enough for you to faceroll them in 20 minutes.

I wouldn't mind never doing heroics if they'd make normals have some replay value. The reputation gains in the top 3 are so small as to be non-existent, and the piddly justice points you get is pointless, and the bosses drop utter crap for loot. I don't feel as though normal 5-mans are preparing people for anything...not even heroics.

Comment by Cialbi

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:14:56 -0600

I don't mind CC'ing..in fact I like it but its too much at the moment when you have to CC 2-3 targets to get through 1 trash mob group.

I agree. I love the fact they brought back CC, but I hate being relied on to keep two targets chain CC'd while keeping dps up at the same time. Of course, a couple months from now we'll be overgeared and not have to rely on CC as much.

Given that my main is a SV hunter, I don't experience instances with PuGs that completely lack classes with reliable CC (or players competent enough to CC reliably). But, my question is with instances being designed with the assumption of at least one target per trash pull being CC'd, how does a PuG without a hunter, rogue, mage, or shaman, handle heroics (that is, without being able to CC at least one humanoid per pull)? Or is the assumption that the former three classes are so popular that such a situation couldn't possibly arise? I think that there either needs to be more classes that can CC humanoids (no, this prospect does not thrill me), or those four classes should be able to queue as a fifth role in the dungeon finder: Crowd Control. I'm sure that the latter would also create a bit of outcry as classes that can CC other types of creatures (I'm so glad you can Banish elementals in Vortex Pinnacle for us, but how does that help us with the humanoid trash packs with two healers apiece?), are capable of interrupting healers (great for burning down one healer, but doesn't do squat about that other healer that's going to cause a wipe anyways), or fear enemies (I would oppose 20 second fears being considered reliable CC unless they can be refreshed and the Dungeon Finder will check to ensure that the player has a glyph that keeps feared mobs from fleeing). I know that I spend enough time waiting in a queue as a DPSer, and would hate to have the queue pop just to discover that we got Vortex Pinnacle and our group composition ensures that the first twin-healer trash pack will be nigh invincible and force us all to rejoin the queue separately after we rack up repair bills. I hear my brother (whose main is a balance druid) complaining about getting a CC-less group and thus having to rejoin the heroic queue after having accomplished nothing helpful.

Comment by Interest

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:22:26 -0600

Ghostcrawler wrote: Archaeologists can even unlock small bonuses in the new dungeons.

This is the first I’ve heard of this. What are these bonuses?

You use a keystone of a certain type and you get bonuses for the dungeon.

Comment by Noboru

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:58:19 -0600

But, my question is with instances being designed with the assumption of at least one target per trash pull being CC'd, how does a PuG without a hunter, rogue, mage, or shaman, handle heroics (that is, without being able to CC at least one humanoid per pull)?

I do think that it's important to mention Seduce and Repentance (although the latter is spec specific).

Comment by TreeOfSorrows

on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:20:54 -0600

It really is their own fault for making WOTLK easy mode. Now they return to Vanilla and BC style dungeons and wonder why people get mad.

Actually, I'm inclined to think they partially did it on purpose to get more players into the game.I agree. They have to ease up content now and then no to loose too many casual players. It's an intricate psychological game they're playing, and money is their ultimate "end-game content". No offence really, I think they're pretty good at it.

Comment by wowstation

on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:50:24 -0600

"We want groups to communicate and strategize."

Never going to happen in a battlegroup dungeon. People did this in realm based dungeons, in a battlegroup dungeon it's rare to find anyone say anything, let alone strategize.

You meet 4 players from other realms, you've never heard of them, you don't know anything about them, they don't know anything about you, and you have 30 mins to "communicate and strategize" while running the dungeon before you split and repeat the whole process with another group of 4 random people from different realms.

It's the battlegroup side of Dungeon Finder which is killing heroics as it kills the community, and Wow is nothing without its community.

Comment by Hiwa

on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 01:00:51 -0600

So far the expansion has been about one overpowering obsession: to level archeology, discover that Vial of the Sands, and make the Drake. That's it. I do a couple instances a day to get some gold and hopefully rep and gear, but then I go right back to the archeology.

When I am in instances I ALWAYS heal tho. I am healz4life, will never quit no matter how frustrating it gets. I love watching shiny green numbers and managing mana and cooldowns. Thank you Blizzard for making my job hard and rewarding again.

Comment by NyteShady

on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 01:21:27 -0600

It's unreasonable. He says he wants it like a puzzle- but that's not the chief complaint. The chief complaint is that everything hits too hard if you under gear it. It is unreasonable that I cannot use the LFG and be able to be successful if I and at least 2 other people know the fight. They've brought back that classic feel, but unfortunately that means they brought back endless grinding for rewards that don't match the effort.

Guilds are a requirement for success, and yes that is part the M of MMO, but no one but me is paying the subscription to participate and that should guarantee me a worthwhile experience alone. Having to play more than I want to, and having to adhere to an organization outside of my subscription i.e. a guild in order to complete the basic gameplay is unreasonable.

This.

I completely agree. I for one, have my own guild, but it's upsetting to see Blizzard to take such a widely-played game and make it so that only the lucky people who have guilds and ready-to-dungeon-farm friends in their pocket.. can be successful. That pisses me off, quite frankly.

That puts way too much stress on the 'get your butt in a guild' idea. I mean... what if people start paying to get into guilds? Where is the fun in the that? That sounds miserable!I mean, you have your progression guilds where everyone either hates each other or only know one another as their character names... and then you have your casual guilds where it's clique-y and all the veteran members kind of... flock together and incoming members get shafted in terms of guild ineraction.

Blizzard! Wake up! Yes, heroics are a challenge!Yes, there's more stress being put on players to actually learn their mechanics and responsibilities.But come on! If someone can blame another person for their own lack of effort or understanding... well, they're going to.They'll type a stinging insult into party chat and drop group. And if the healer or tank don't also happen to be guildies or close friends, then you find yourself re-entering the dungeon queue, and crossing your fingers that the new additions will be attentive, intelligent, and have at least SOME patience.

Which leads me to my next point:

Heroics are hard. Gear is needed. So when the mobs/bosses aren't dying within 2 seconds of each other--

No, healer. No, tank. It is not because the DPS is retarded.The dungeon's going to seriously SUCK, until everyone's gear is well above the appropriate level for the dungeon.So, effing relax. All the knowledge in the world can't make someone pump out enough DPS to fit your apparent standards of 'killing the mob fast enough', if the person doesn't have the gear to fuel their spells enough. I need stats to deal more damage, don't I?

So please, for the love of god, stop blaming everyone else when it's going to be difficult until everyone else is raid-geared.

/end rant.

Comment by LordAnthrax74

on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 01:23:08 -0600

I have things accomplished here I can tell you right now that you have never done.... I can give you my armory if you like. I would venture ta say even my alts have done more.I have a #$%^ ton of time invested in this game.... casual.... no...

Which is why you'll whine, cry, scream, ramp, rave and throw threats...and I bet you'll ultimately keep playing. Blizz's mission is accomplished. They maintain their income without bending to your emoraeg-fuelled rhetoric, as they have for years and will continue to for as long as they desire.

Working As Intended. :D

Comment by LordAnthrax74

on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 01:42:44 -0600

Guilds are a requirement for success, and yes that is part the M of MMO, but no one but me is paying the subscription to participate and that should guarantee me a worthwhile experience alone. Having to play more than I want to, and having to adhere to an organization outside of my subscription i.e. a guild in order to complete the basic gameplay is unreasonable.

This is a very unhealthy attitude. Honestly, when you feel like you have to turn what's supposed to be a leisure activity into work to enjoy it...you need to stop playing.

Speaking for myself, I only do solo content. I play to enjoy the gameworld on my time and my terms. This means I don't get to do dungeons at level-appropriate ranges. I wish I could benefit from that content, but I refuse to change how I play to adapt to what's needed to do that content. I don't expect the rest of the game to be changed to accommodate me.